The Paper's reporter Yue Huairang
There is a typo in the Tang Dynasty's great calligrapher Yan Zhenqing's "Manuscript of Sacrifice to the Nephew", and no one has found it for more than a thousand years? Recently, a video of a female scholar Sun He in a media literary and historical column was watched by netizens in the calligraphy circle, and triggered discussions on a number of Internet platforms such as Zhihu, Weibo, and WeChat video numbers.
Sun He pointed out in the video that Yan Zhenqing's "Sacrifice Nephew Manuscript" had a typo, she said: "This word, not written as a thorn, written as a jiao (she reads jia), this itself is a typo, but he (Yan Zhenqing) does not know." Among all the official titles of the Tang Dynasty, there is no history of the tang dynasty, only the history of thorns, right? Sun He is currently a professor at China University of Political Science and Law and the director of the Art Brokerage Research Center of China University of Political Science and Law.
At noon on May 15, the surging news published an article "Female scholars call Yan Zhenqing < sacrifice nephew manuscript> there is a typo, netizens watch, the circle is difficult to agree" introduced, this video quickly spread from the calligraphy circle, many netizens pointed out that Sun He's statement is a "bizarre error", and Yan Zhenqing did not write wrong, "刾" was indeed used with "thorn" in ancient times.
On the evening of the 15th, a number of people in the domestic calligraphy circle told the surging news reporter that although Sun He's statement did not occupy the mainstream, it could not be concluded that Sun He was "wrong".
For example, Liang Peixian, a calligraphy researcher from Nanjing Normal University, recently wrote an article entitled "A Personal Opinion on Professor Sun He's "Sandwich History Problem"" to refute most netizens' doubts about Sun He. In the article, he said: "Professor Sun He's 'history issue' has been continuously concerned, and as a well-known friend of Sun He," he said, "I am saddened that a scholar with an academic background and a high moral character has been attacked by such an attack in the era of self-media." I felt the need to come out and say a few words. ”
Liang Peixian wrote in the article: "Let's first talk about the focus of the problem, that is, the 'thorn' character of Yan Zhenqing's "Sacrifice Nephew Draft" "History of Thorns" to do 'from the clip' to deal with the matter. Sun He said: Yan Zhenqing wrote a typo. This is where she was targeted. And the attacker of the original origin was also a very familiar friend of mine, a calligrapher, and that was what he attacked. From the perspective of calligraphers, those who have written Han Li, Northern Dynasty epitaphs, and junior high school Tang Kai Xingshu are familiar with this 'thorn' writing method of 'congjia' was very common during this period. However, he may not know that Professor Sun He's main business is philology and calligraphy is a side business, so doesn't Sun He know that the 'thorn' character of 'from the clip' is common in the above history? Of course she knew, but she said that Yan Zhenqing had written a typo, which was the professional habit of a philologist. That is, from the perspective of philology, Yan Zhenqing's writing style is a typo. ”
Yan Zhenqing's "Yan Family Temple Stele" Part The pictures in this article are from the WeChat public account @ Calligraphy and Painting Online
So, is Professor Sun He's statement reasonable?
Liang Peixian believes that if we look at Yan Zhenqing's calligraphy, we can find that the "Sacrifice nephew manuscript" was created in the first year of the Qianyuan Dynasty, that is, in 758, which is the writing method of "congjia". However, in the ninth year of the Gregorian calendar (774), Yan Zhenqing's "Book of Ganlu Characters" was written in two ways, according to the July 1992 edition of the Forbidden City Publishing House's "Yan Zhenqing Ganlu Character Book" compiled by Mr. Shi Anchang. Later, in the twelfth year of the Gregorian calendar (777), Yan Zhenqing's "Li Xuanjing Stele" was written as a "thorn", which is exactly the same as what we write today. However, in the "Yan Family Temple Stele" in the later Jianzhong First Year (780), there was a phenomenon of mutual recognition between the two writing methods. What does this reciprocating process illustrate? I believe that Yan Zhenqing, as a family of words, is also a bit "muttering" here. "Congjia" is an inherent writing method since the Han Dynasty, however, it does not conform to the orthography provisions of the "Shuowen"; and the writing of "thorn", although it conforms to the "Shuowen", belongs to the new writing method after the orthography at that time, and the inscription is suddenly adopted, which is easy to make the viewer feel strange and unfavorable to reading. Therefore, when the word "thorn" appeared only once in the "Li Xuanjing Monument", Yan Zhenqing chose a new way of writing "thorn"; and when the word "Yan Family Temple Stele" appeared twice, one did "thorn" and the other was still "thorn" from the clip.
Part of Yan Zhenqing's "Li Xuanjing Monument"
The question is, how does today's philological research view this "thorn" writing method of "from the clip"?
Liang Peixian gave an example in the article: In the preface to the "Book of Ganlu Characters of Yan Zhenqing" compiled by Mr. Shi Anchang, the orthographic characters in the "Book of Ganlu Characters" were compared with the orthography of Xu Shen's "Shuowen", Zhang Shan's "Five Classics", and Tang Xuandu's "New Nine Classics", and according to the "Sayings" ("Shuowen"), "Characters" ("Ganlu Character Book"), "Shi" ("Five Classics Text", because it was engraved in the "Kaicheng Stone Classic", so it was referred to as "Stone"), "Jing" ("New Nine Classics"), "Tong" (variant characters), "False" Six categories, made into a table. In this table, the later writing of the word "thorn" is in the first column, that is, those who conform to the "Shuowen" are the most authoritative writing, while the writing method of "from the clip" is in the sixth column at the end, which belongs to the distorted text. It should be noted that, according to the classification of the table makers, "the different ways in which other acts are written in the same word, such as the notes on the words of the word, ancient text, and vulgar characters, are now written together in the 'same' column", that is, the distorted text does not belong to the category of "vulgar characters", but the most unreliable of the six types of writing.
Part of Shi Anchang's "Yan Zhenqing Ganlu Character Book"
Liang Peixian pointed out: In addition, there is another problem, this "from the clip" writing method in the edition of the Forbidden City Publishing House is not available in earlier versions, and the name of the table in Mr. Shi Anchang's preface is "Supplementary < Ganlu Character Book> Table". That is to say, it is possible that the "Book of Ganlu Characters" written by Yan Zhenqing at that time only had the "thorn" method of writing. In the Yan family's calligraphy, Yan Zhenqing was very clear that this word should be written as a "thorn", not a "from the clip" writing.
Shi Anchang's "> Table of Supplementary < Ganlu Characters"
Based on this, Liang Peixian concluded that Professor Sun He's view was not to blame the ancients for no reason, but to view the way yan Zhenqing's "Sacrifice nephew draft" was written with the attitude that a serious philologist should have. In fact, the way to write "thorn" instead of "from the clip" should be a common practice among calligraphers since the Song Dynasty, such as Huang Tingjian's "Biography of Fan Huan" who wrote "thorn" after the orthography. That is to say, in later generations, the writing method of "from the clip" has been treated as a typo and automatically abandoned by the writers.
Part of Huang Tingjian's Biography of Fan Huan
To put it simply, Liang Peixian supported Sun He's allegation that Yan Zhenqing's "Manuscript on Sacrifice of Nephews" was a mistake in writing "thorns" as "刾", and believed that Yan Zhenqing also recognized this and corrected his own mistake in subsequent manuscripts.
According to the website of the Academy of Fine Arts of Nan Normal University, Liang Peixian, male, was born in September 1969 in Ganyu, Jiangsu Province. He graduated from Nanjing Normal University and central academy of fine arts with undergraduate and postgraduate studies under Mr. Wei Tianchi, Ma Shida, Wang Dongling and Qiu Zhenzhong. He was the director of the Academic Department of Ningbo Art Museum, and is now a lecturer at the School of Fine Arts of Nanjing Normal University, a researcher of the Modern Calligraphy Research Center of the China Academy of Art, a researcher of the Art Brokerage Research Center of China University of Political Science and Law, a member of the Chinese Calligraphers Association, and a member of the China Standard Cursive Society. His published works include "White Water And Streams- Treatise on Painting and Calligraphy of Haiyulou", "Ten Contemporary Calligraphers , Liang Peixian Volume", "Extramural Neon Dress: Social Etiquette in Famous Paintings", "Chinese Calligraphy Master Mi Fu", "Calligraphy and Painting Homology: Wen Zhengming" and so on.
For Liang Peixian's statement, a member of the Chinese Book Association from Shanghai believes that although Liang Wen is a supplement and explanation of Sun He's views, there are still shortcomings in adding the conclusions of later generations to the ancients, and the persuasiveness is discounted.
On the 15th, a scholar who had been a colleague of Sun He at the postdoctoral stage of the Central Academy of Fine Arts introduced to the surging news reporter that Professor Sun He believed that there were typos in Yan Zhenqing's "Manuscript of the Sacrifice of Nephews" for some time, which can be regarded as a family's words and should not be interpreted too much, but Sun He's statement has indeed not been recognized by the mainstream of the calligraphy community.
Another scholar who was the chairman of the calligraphers association of a southern province told the surging news reporter on the 15th that Sun He's public expression in the TV media was not rigorous.
Editor-in-Charge: Jiang Chenrui